


miles from where anyone can find you

by mm_nani, neyvenger (jjjat3am)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Getting Together, M/M, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mm_nani/pseuds/mm_nani, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/pseuds/neyvenger
Summary: It’s not the first time they meet. There’s some England call-ups before that, moments when they up together on the pitch and who they are doesn’t matter as much as the jersey they’re wearing does. It’s long enough that Jamie knows that Neville prefers to be called Gaz, instead of the mouthful of Georgina, but everything else is a mystery.Off the pitch, Gaz Neville keeps to herself, or to a group of other England players that play in the US or somewhere else abroad. It’s not like it matters - she’s a Manc, a United fan, so she grates on Carra just by existing.





	1. Podfic

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest thanks for Nani, for undertaking this project with me and encouraging me through it. Also huge thanks to Mai, for always coming through for me when I feel the worst writer's block, and to Merc, for making this presentable. And greatest thanks to Rach, for doing my research for me and fact checking all the United information. I love you lots.
> 
> Title is from Neko Case's [Star Witness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi6keFpm-BY), which doubles as the soundtrack for this story.

 

**Length: 33:11**

**Format:**  MP3 and streaming

**Direct Download:[Right-Click Save](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2017/Miles%20from%20where%20anyone%20will%20find%20you.mp3)**

 

 


	2. Carra

 

 

It’s Saturday night and Everton are playing Boro in the fourth round of the FA Cup. The fans in blue in Ayersome Park murmur amongst themselves in confusion and apprehension as the stadium announcer reads off the starting list.

 

Duncan McKenzie isn’t on it.

 

On the sidelines, Gordon Lee paces, looking for stars in the sky. The whistle blows.

 

In Bootle, Liverpool, Paula Carragher feels her water break.

 

Her husband, Philly, turns on the game in the car on the way to the hospital and she socks him in the jaw.

 

Everton lose, 3:2, and go home in disgrace.

 

Jamie Lee Duncan Carragher is born a few minutes after the last whistle goes.

 

“Lee Duncan?” the midwife asks, turning up her nose. “A strange set of names for a girl.”

 

“Just write it down,” Philly says, a little gruffly, either overcome by the emotion of seeing his first child, or upset because Everton lost.

 

*

 

“I want to play football,” Jamie, age 6, tells her dad. Some of her teeth are still missing and she keeps sucking on the empty gums, making wet squelching noises.

 

Philly laughs. “Go get ready for bed, kiddo,” he says.

 

*

 

“I want to play football,” Jamie, age 10, tells her dad. She’s got all her own teeth, though one is chipped, from taking a nosedive on the asphalt after a kickabout with the older boys,

 

Philly turns his head away, pretends not to notice her in the shadow of his armchair, up past her bedtime to watch Saturday night football, while her mother is busy with her younger brothers.

 

*

 

“I want to play football,” Jamie, age 14, tells her dad. She’s got most of her teeth and a good set of feet, and an Everton kit she never takes off.

 

“Alright,” he says.

 

The next day, he has her change out of her Sharp jersey, and he takes her down to the Liverpool Ladies to ask for a trial.

 

*

 

Liverpool Ladies are top of the WSL first division and have been since Christmas. Unlike their male counterparts, floundering mid-tier, keeping afloat only with the faded brilliance of one John Barnes, the Liverpool Ladies expect to win the league this year. They won it last year too.

 

Everyone knows that if you want to play professional football as a woman, you go to the Liverpool Ladies. Not just because they pay a livable wage, but because of the talent.

 

*

 

There are some battles that Jamie doesn’t have to fight, because Roberta Fowler and Stevie McManaman have already fought them for her, playing the sort of mesmerizing football that leaves even the most biased of commentators speechless.

 

They’re the shining crown jewels in the heart of the Liverpool team, young and talented, filling the stands with young women in makeshift jerseys until the club catches on and starts selling real ones.

 

They’re a kind of myth, filling the sports pages with performances that refuse to be ignored, and filling the gossip columns with their evening exploits. In their rapidly expanding world, they’re rockstars.

 

Jamie spots them a few weeks into her training with one of the youth groups. No one pauses in their drills, but heads turn, curious young faces following their progress down one of the sidelines.

 

Robbie, short and stubby, in a sharp mini-skirt and a Liverpool sweatshirt, looks a strange counterpart to the bean tall Macca walking beside her. Robbie must say something funny, because Macca laughs, the sound of it echoing in the suddenly quiet training ground, her bronze curls flying in the wind.

 

They disappear around the corner and everyone on the grounds exhales in a rush, as if they’ve briefly been allowed some glimpse of magic.

 

*

 

Jamie is  walking home from practice, her cleats hung from her bag to air dry on the way. They smell, but it keeps people off her side of the sidewalk. It’s when she’s almost at her street that she hears the unmistakable thud of the ball hitting the post, and she detours through the park to see who’s playing at the late hour. She’s sore, but always ready to play a game of pick-up with the local boys.

 

There’s no group of boys on the field though. Just one, taking free kick after free kick at the goal. It doesn’t have a net on, and the balls thud, one by one, into the fence behind it.

 

Only about half of them go in cleanly. Granted, that’s more than she’s seen most kids her age do. She drops her bag anyway, strides halfway down the field to yell.

 

“Hey! My grandma could take a better free kick than that!”

 

They boy turns around, his forehead wrinkling as he frowns. The field is only lit up by a streetlight and it draws shadows across his face. It’d be almost romantic, if Jamie was into that kind of thing. She isn’t.

 

The boy is silent for a time, long enough that she figures that he’s not a native and that she’ll have to translate what she said to something more understandable. But when he does finally open his mouth, it’s genuine Scouse that comes out.

 

“You recon you could do better then?” he says, and she grins.

 

“Sure,” she says and walks up to him. He tucks the ball under the ball of his foot, a clear challenge to come and get it. He’s wearing cleats, hers are still hanging on the bag, but it doesn’t feel like she has time to get them.

 

Jamie darts forward, fakes to the left, and swipes at the ball. He moves backwards at the last second, but she’s anticipating it, following up with her right, pushing on his chest with her shoulder. He’s solid, quick. She probably wouldn’t have been able to take the ball off him, if he were anticipating it.

 

But she sweeps it out from under him, and shoots blind in the direction of the goal, smiling smugly at him all the while.

 

“You missed,” he points out, dryly. She shrugs, grinning.

 

“I’m Carra,” she says, “who are you?”

 

“Stevie,” he says, and reaches out to clasp her outstretched hand. “Do you want to work on tackles?”

 

She always does.

 

Jamie meets Steven Gerrard on the field, but it’s the grubby muddy one down the street from her house, and not the one in front of a shiny new practice facility. It doesn’t really seem to matter.

 

*

 

Jamie is nearly eighteen when she gets called up for the first team. She stumbles through practice, half-afraid to actually talk to anybody, and she doesn’t play in the game that weekend.

 

Her friends take her out to celebrate anyway. They’re mostly her friends from the academy, a mish-mash of girls of all ages and sizes that she’s bonded with over the years. Someone slaps a beer in her hand, and it’s not her first, but it’s novel anyway, but mostly just too warm and she grimaces as it trickles its way down her throat.

 

It takes her probably too long to figure out it’s a gay bar. The women casually holding each other in intimate embraces on the dancefloor should have been her first hint, but in her defense she’s always been a little dense.

 

Jamie wonders, half-hysterically, what gave her away? Was it her buzzcut? Or was it the way she stumbled over her words whenever Macca smiles?

 

Either way, it seems like she’s got acceptance, and judging by the way some of her teammates are getting handsy a ways down the bar, she’s got permission too. She downs the rest of her beer, and looks around.

 

There’s a girl, sitting by herself at the bar, sipping on a vivid cocktail. Probably something with berries and sweet liquor. She’s slight, but older. Pretty. Especially when she smiles.

 

Jamie slides off her barstool, and her knees feel like she’s gearing up for a match.

 

Her name is Sally. Her hips fit perfectly under Jamie’s palms.

 

Her kisses taste like berries.

 

*

 

It’s ironic that years later, after Stevie’s made it in the Liverpool men’s squad, and Jamie is a core part of the Liverpool Ladies, the Daily Mail runs a story about their illicit love affair.

 

Jamie thinks it’s the funniest shit she’s ever seen and she never lets him hear the end of it.

 

"Hey cupcake, you gonna take me to dinner tonight?"

 

"...hamburgers?"

 

"You sure know how to treat your old lady."

 

"Carra, we’re not married!"

 

"Well, the papers say we are, so it must be true. I need a new pair of cleats, be my sugar daddy.”

 

"I’m not your sugar daddy!"

 

"Bit louder love, I don't think they heard you in Manchester."

 

*

 

The good folk at Manchester United finally get their shit together and form a women’s team. This means that Jamie finally gets her dream of crushing them in a Liverpool jersey.

 

They’re probably overconfident, going into their game against them. On paper they aren’t much. They’ve got Nicole Butt, who played for Birmingham. Vicious little ginger, but Jamie likes her. Or she did, before Butty decided to put on a United jersey.

 

And then there’s Georgina Neville. Some hotshot from the US, apparently related to Everton’s Philip Neville. Jamie dislikes her just on principle.

 

*

 

Jamie moves in with her girlfriend a few years after she signs for Liverpool Ladies full time. It isn’t the girl from the gay bar, but she’s just as pretty. She’s blonde. Her name is Nicola. She likes Jamie’s buzzcut, the way it feels under her fingers.

 

She’s an accountant, good enough to pay for most of their rent and not even blink. Good enough to get a job offer in the US.

 

“They’ve got good women’s teams in the US, right?” Nicola says, casually, smiling at her brightly. “Just come with me.”

 

Jamie looks past her, through the windows at the panorama of the city. Dirty industrial buildings, the sky an almost permanent shade of grey, and two silhouettes, Anfield and Goodison Park, facing each other like two fortresses from ancient times.

 

“I can’t do that,” Jamie says.

 

“But, I love you,” Nicola says, and her smile is gone.

 

Jamie doesn’t say anything back, just keeps her eyes fixed on the stadiums in the distance. Stadiums where she’ll probably never get to play. But still -

 

The door slams loud after Nicola’s retreating form.

 

*

 

Jamie moves into the Liverpool Ladies dorm house a month later, unwilling and unable to keep the fancy apartment. The dorm isn’t officially affiliated with the club. Rather, it’s a house Roberta Fowler bought on a whim with her yearly salary and the bonus from winning the Champions League. She and Macca turned it into a space with rooms for players coming to play from abroad, or just for people like Jamie, who didn’t like to live alone.

 

Macca fixes the sink whenever it springs a leak, and Roberta makes everyone tea all the time, and the two of them have loud wild sex every night, scarring all of them for life.

 

*

 

The first time they play Manchester United Women, Jamie gets a little bit overexcited. In the first five minutes she:

  * Sets up a goal
  * Trips up the whole of United’s front line at least once
  * Calls Gaz Neville “Georgina”, to her face
  * Punches Gaz Neville in the face



 

In Jamie’s defence, Gaz is the one that swings first.

 

They both get suspended for two games. It’s worth it.

 

*

 

It’s not the first time they meet. There’s some England call-ups before that, moments when they up together on the pitch and who they are doesn’t matter as much as the jersey they’re wearing does. It’s long enough that Jamie knows that Neville prefers to be called Gaz, instead of the mouthful of Georgina, but everything else is a mystery.

 

Off the pitch, Gaz Neville keeps to herself, or to a group of other England players that play in the US or somewhere else abroad. It’s not like it matters - she’s a Manc, a United fan, so she grates on Carra just by existing.

 

The one significant time they speak outside of a professional setting, they’re watching a rerun of an old United vs Liverpool game on a call-up. Neville is passionately explaining all the strengths of the United team cca 1986, and Jamie’s had about enough.

 

“Hey, Neville,” she says, too loud, “why do you keep supporting a team that doesn’t give a shit about you and the game you play?”

 

Macca places a restraining hand on Jamie’s elbow reflexively, a leftover from all the bar fights Jamie tends to start whenever she goes out. The tension skyrockets as Neville turns to glare in their direction. Jamie grins at her incensed face.

 

“We have an amateur side,” Neville counters.

 

“That United doesn’t even financially support,” Jamie says, watching in satisfaction as Neville grits her teeth.

 

“They will,” Neville says, with a confidence that’s got to be mostly bravado. Jamie snorts.

 

Neville isn’t pretty, exactly. Jamie likes soft, blonde girls, with curves and pretty smiles. Gaz Neville has none of those qualities, so Jamie can’t explain why she keeps catching herself staring in her direction. And she’s in touch with her desires enough to know it’s not just about hating her.

 

“Richest club in football and they can’t field a women’s team?” Jamie shakes her head. “It’s embarrassing.”

 

“We aren’t all so lucky that-” Neville cuts off, and looks away, her mouth a thin line.

 

“That what?” Jamie prompts, struck by the unexpected display of emotion.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Neville says, turns back to the screen and to Nicole Butt, looking at her with concern.

 

It breaks the tension that Jamie hasn’t even been aware was gathering in the room. Macca taps her arm once, a warning, and Jamie offers her a distracted nod. She spends the rest of the evening staring at the back of Neville’s head.

 

 


	3. Gary

 

 

Gaz is quiet for a time after Phil tells her he’s leaving United to play for Everton. He seems to know to leave her some space, but it’s not long before he’s fidgeting in his seat, wringing his hands and sending her furtive glances.

 

“Are you mad?” he asks, carefully.

 

“No,” Gaz says, and it’s not entirely a lie. She’s mad, just not at Phil.

 

She’s mad that he gets the choice to walk away from something she’s wanted above all else. That the United shirt hanging in his closet so casually, Neville on the back, is something that she’ll never get to touch just by virtue of being who she is.

 

“Good luck,” she adds, because Phil is her brother, and she loves him, but United is her team, and she thinks it’ll take her a while to forgive him.

 

*

 

_ (...) _

 

_ The Manchester Corinthians - an amateur side - had formed in 1949 and had already played against British and French opponents. Manchester Corinthians were holders of the 1951 Festival of Britain Trophy, one of the many unofficial ‘national’ tournaments for women’s teams from the United Kingdom at that time. _

 

_ (...) _

 

_ An inter-club competition, titled the European Championship, was hosted under the auspices of an International Ladies’ Football Association in 1957. Teams from England, Austria, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and West Germany took part. Manchester Corinthians won the tournament, led by their thirty-three year old captain Doris Ashley. The high profile tournament was an important moment in the continuing internalisation of women’s football. _

 

_ (...) _

 

_ (from Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality; The Gendered Governance of Association Football by Jean Williams, pages 70-71) _

  
  


*

 

Gaz is twelve when she drafts the first petition for a female Manchester United team. It starts with a school report, written through many quiet hours in her room and sulky trips to the library and the Manchester archive, and evolves into a thirty page essay, written with all the passion of a pre-teen girl who only loves two things, and proof-read by a mother that’s always tried to protect her from them.

 

The club responds with a short generic note and a printed Bryan Robson signature. 

 

Gaz reads the letter and by the time she finishes, her stomach hurts so bad she has to lie down.

 

It turns out that the stomach ache is a signifier of her first period, but her mother still blames the letter and the heart-wrenching disappointment for kick starting her daughter’s puberty.

 

She’s still in bed, teeth clenched and fists curled, a few hours later, when her father comes home. He knocks on the door and steps inside, sitting on the edge of her bed. She turns around to look at him and he sighs at the glitter of tears in her eyes.

 

“Oh, Georgina,” he says, as she lets out a sob. He’s the only one allowed to call her that. “What are we going to do?”

 

And that, in the end, is what finally calms her down. The implicit support in that statement, the knowledge that he isn’t giving up on her, or her dreams. That they’re in this together, he and Gaz, and Phil and Tracey for sure, and their mom will come around because she always does. 

 

“I play, you coach,” Gaz says, doesn’t add ‘just like always’, because that’s a given.

 

A few months later Salford City gets an amateur female football team.

 

Gaz doesn’t stop sending letters.

 

*

 

_ (...) _

 

_ Manchester United's women's team formed in the late 1970s as "Manchester United Supporters Club Ladies" and became founding members of the North West Women's Regional Football League in 1989. They enjoyed increasingly competitive seasons at varying levels until 2001, when they were brought into an official relationship with Manchester United. Manchester United had been running schools for girls through its community development programs. Some of the women players had come up through this system. _

 

_ (...) _

 

_ (from From A Left Wing: The Ladies of Old Trafford, by Jennifer Doyle) _

  
  


*

 

They’re kind to her in Philadelphia.

 

Gaz secures a roster spot on the Philadelphia Charge, in the newly established Women's United Soccer Association. It comes after years of NCAA Championship wins with the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, and playing for different development leagues. She finishes her degrees in economics and business management in North Carolina, but she’s always focused on football.

 

The Women's United Soccer Association is a perfect opportunity to play football professionally and get paid for it, and the Philadelphia Charge offer her a position, so she takes it. 

 

She’s not the only Brit on the roster. Kelly Smith is an Arsenal fan, but she’s nice enough otherwise. Still, Gaz only stays with the team for one season.

 

Phil calls her late at night, because he always forgets how timezones work, and his voice is colored by pure excitement.

 

“United’s taken on a female football team,” he says, and the world drops from under her feet.

 

That’s how she ends up abandoning her professional contract in the US, to play football for Manchester United.

 

*

_ (...) _

 

_ The women's side was then disbanded in 2005. The team had played over twenty years outside the club's administrative umbrella, and in four years Manchester United FC killed it.  _

 

_ (...) _

 

_ (from From A Left Wing: The Ladies of Old Trafford, by Jennifer Doyle) _

 

*

 

“Endure it,” Gaz tells herself, in grimey locker rooms and through long bus rides, Butty snoring in her ear.

 

“Endure it,” she tells the girls when the new kits arrive six months too late and don’t fit.

 

“Endure it,” when they play in the same tatty training kits for six years.

 

“Endure it,” when Carragher tries to goad her into another suspension, grinning smugly, hammering in the fact that there are teams who care, who want their players to succeed. She just isn’t playing for them.

 

After five years with the club, five long years enduring, a letter arrives, bearing the Manchester United -

 

It informs her that her services at the club are no longer needed, because her team is gone. Dissolved, like all her letters, all the history, like none of that matters.

 

And she can endure no longer.

 

*

 

Phil pleads with the few contacts he still has in the club for them not to go through with it. David Beckham calls from Spain to express his disapproval. 

 

(and before this happened, Gaz might have blushed at the news, maybe spent a few hours daydreaming about could have beens)

 

Nothing works. Gaz is thirty-one and all she has to show from her childhood dream is a water bottle with United’s crest on it. 

 

It hurts, a dull ache in her stomach, a fist squeezed around her heart. Hurts worse than a punch in the face, worse than a broken foot, worse than that first letter and the printed autograph of Bryan Robson.

 

Gaz feels stripped bare, judged and found wanting. All those years of pushing, of pulling herself out of the mud, for this, all of it, worthless, in the face of this casual contempt. 

 

And just when the pain feels like more than she can endure, she goes numb instead. Spends the day locked up in her room and her nights pushing her body across the sparse grass on the field behind her house.

 

Her dad approaches her tentatively one afternoon, watches the way she mechanically pulls on her cleats, one after another, lacing up patterns she’s had since she was a kid.

 

“A few clubs have offered you a contract,” he says.

 

She doesn’t look at him. And because loyalty means nothing, and because love means nothing, she says, “I’ll take the one with the most money.”

 

“Are you sure-”

 

“Yes.” 

 

*

 

Gaz puts on the training kit mechanically, the crinkly new material soft against her body. She doesn’t look at the color, she doesn’t look at the crest, and she doesn’t look anyone in the locker room in the eye. 

 

It’s high summer, and England is in the midst of a heatwave. Gaz walks out on the training field, feels sweat dripping down her back, soaking the jersey. Carragher’s voice echoes across the field, howling on about something or the other. She’s bent together with some of the other defenders, but she looks up when Gaz comes near, face stretching into a smug smile.

 

“Well, well,” Carragher says, “good of you to finally join us, Georgina.”

 

Anger burns like a low flame in Gaz’s stomach.

 

“Don’t call me that,” she says.

 

“Sure,” Carragher grins wider, her accent grating, “I’ll just read your name off your back.”

 

Gaz stays quiet, drops into her stretches. The tension on the field is palpable, and the gaffer is watching them closely along with the training staff. Gaz knows better to expect any support from them.

 

Carragher continues her goading. “You look great in red. Guess the crest doesn’t matter much, does it?”

 

Anger runs red hot in her veins and her fists come up, knuckles white. “Fuck off,” Gaz spits out.

 

And then, to her surprise, Carragher laughs. The smile on her face softens into something she’s only seen directed at other people. “There’s that sparkling personality,” she says. “Welcome to the team.”

 

The tension bleeds out of the training ground, and the coaching assistants start giving out instructions. Carragher turns her attention to the coaching staff, the conversation apparently finished, leaving Gaz confused and stewing in her fury. 

 

It’s the most she’s felt in a long while.

  
  


*

  
  


Eventually the stress and the financial strain commuting from Manchester to Liverpool becomes too much and Gaz starts looking for a place to live in Liverpool.

 

“Just move into the House,” Carra tells her, shrugging, “you can have Xabi’s old room. It’s empty now that she’s in Spain. Broke Stevie’s heart.”

 

“What?” Gaz asks, dumbfounded by the offer.

 

“Xabi Alonso? Brunette, leggy, unfortunately straight? She went to that Real Madrid Femeni team that Beckham sponsors.”

 

“No, I mean, what house?”

 

And that’s how Gaz ends up in what is apparently the Fowler and McManaman House for Wayward Football Players. It’s a huge drafty house and there’s Liverpool memorabilia everywhere. In short, it’s hell.

 

“Have some tea, dearie,” Roberta Fowler hands her a cup that Gaz takes on reflex and sips. It burns her mouth.

 

“Oh, and if there’s screaming from the top floor at night, don’t be worried,” Macca says, winking, “nobody’s in trouble.”

 

“We’re just fucking!” Roberta announces cheerfully and Gaz chokes on her tea.

 

It’s hell.

 

*

 

Despite her resolution to stay in her room and have as little as possible contact with the other residents of the house, Gaz gets coaxed out of her room eventually. 

 

Macca and Roberta are actually very nice, when they’re not banging on every available surface. Joanna Arne is big and ginger, and very sweet, and Martina Škrtel is quiet, but a strong character. She has to be, to partner Carragher in defense.

 

Speaking of Carragher, she’s mostly civil, though still often awfully aggravating. She has opinions on everything, and she’s not afraid to debate them, loudly, preferably half dressed, like she knows how distracting it is.

 

Honestly, if she had known how often Carragher walks around topless around the house, Gaz probably wouldn’t have moved in.

 

As it is, the sight of Carragher drinking her morning tea with her round pert breasts on full display to the cold air, never fails to leave her with a warm embarrassing feeling in the pit of her stomach that makes her hide her flushed face into her Weetabix.

 

*

 

“You’re up late. Aren’t you usually asleep by nine?”

 

Gary looks up from where she’s staring into the dredges of her hot cocoa at Carra standing in the doorway. She’s clothed thankfully, in a pair of oversized male pajamas. They’re cotton, and striped, and surprisingly conservative, considering-

 

“My eyes are up here,” Carra says, sounding amused and Gaz flushes.

 

“What do you know about my sleeping habits anyway?” she says, trying to change the subject.

 

Carra shrugs, walks over to drop in the chair opposite her. “Stevie told me.”

 

“How would he know?” Gaz asks, confused.

 

“Beckham told him. I don’t know how he knows,” Carra says, raising an eyebrow.

 

“It’s nothing like you think,” Gaz hisses, “he’d slept over at the house with Phil sometimes. He must have remembered.”

 

“I didn’t say anything,” Carra says, but the tension leaves her body and her face relaxes into a smile. “So, if you’re an early bird, why are you still awake?”

 

Gaz takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Some of her annoyance leaves with it.

 

“I can’t sleep,” she confesses. “I haven’t been able to since...you know.”

 

Since she was let go.

 

Carra leans back in her chair, looking thoughtful. “Do you wanna fuck?”

 

Gaz chokes on her indrawn breath. “What?!”

 

“I’m just saying,” Carra hurries on, “getting off always helps me fall asleep.”

 

“And you’re offering your help with that?” Gaz says, disbelieving.

 

“I’ve been offering for a while,” Carra shrugs, catches her eyes, “and don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

 

Gaz had. “Okay,” she says.

 

“Okay?” Carra looks a little thrown, and Gaz feels a thrill of triumph pierce through her anxiety and rising want.

 

“Yeah, let’s fuck,” Gaz says, watching with satisfaction as Carra’s eyes darken.

 

They meet each other halfway, the kitchen table in the way, and digging uncomfortably into Gaz’s lower stomach. It’s a good kiss though. Carra’s lips are a little chapped, but she knows what she’s doing, cradling the nape of Gaz’s neck, running her fingers through her hair.

 

She makes a soft sound under her breath when Gary reaches out to cup her breast through her pajamas. 

 

Gaz breaks the kiss, though Carra follows, keeps wanting to kiss her again. “My room?” Gaz says. “I’d rather not do it here, I caught Roberta and Macca on the table just last week.”

 

“That’s so gross,” Carra groans, but she reaches out for Gaz’s hand anyway, pulling them out the door and up the stairs. “Please don’t talk about them as we do this, I’ll change my mind.”

 

Gaz stops her on the stairs, pulls her closer to kiss her again. “No, you won’t,” she whispers.

 

“No, I won’t,” Carra says, grinning against her mouth. “I’ve wanted this for way too long to back out now. You’re stuck with me.”

 

“Lead the way.”

 

*

 

Gaz wakes up sometime in the middle of the night with another body pressed against her, and the feel of soft breasts against her naked back immediately makes her flush. The arm thrown around her middle tightens as Carra nuzzles closer. Gaz freezes as Carra presses a kiss to the nape of her neck.

 

“Don’t freak out,” Carra murmurs, her voice raspy with sleep.

 

“I’m not,” Gaz whispers back. 

 

She is.

 

Carra laughs. “You can punch me in the face later, if that’ll make you feel better?”

 

“That always makes me feel better,” Gaz says, the first wave of anxiety overcome by the familiarity of the back and forth. She nestles back into the pillow, waits for Carra to adjust and goes back to sleep. 

 

She dreams about stars in the night sky, and about Old Trafford singing, calling her home across the field. She dreams about glory and the right shade of red.

 

And in her dream, she always ends up right where she fell asleep, too warm, with Carra’s arm slung around her waist, and her soft snores tucked into Gaz’s hair.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> \- Gordon Lee was the Everton manager from 1977 to 1981, and he did throw Duncan McKenzie out of the line up on the day that Carra was born. He's famous for the quote: "People keep on about stars and flair. As far as I'm concerned you find stars in the sky and flair at the bottom of your trousers."  
> \- the idea here is that Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman are born as women, and bring the Liverpool Ladies to fame and fortune. In reality, Liverpool Ladies did decently, but not nearly up to the amount presented here.  
> \- Nicole Butt is Nicky Butt who did used to play for Birmingham after he played for Manchester United  
> \- The Gendered Governance of Association Football by Jean Williams, Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality;pages 70-71  
> \- Bryan Robson was Gary's childhood fave  
> \- The Ladies of Old Trafford, by Jennifer Doyle; From A Left Wing, [Link](http://fromaleftwing.blogspot.si/2012/07/the-ladies-of-old-trafford.html?m=1)  
> \- the Women's United Soccer Association began its first season in April 2001. The Philadelphia Charge was one of the teams participating, and Kelly Smith did used to play for them.  
> \- the University of North Carolina Tar Heels have one of the best female college soccer teams in the US  
> \- Manchester United took on an established amateur female team in 2001. By all accounts, they treated it poorly. The ill fitting kits, the same training kits for all 6 years, water bottles as end of season gift, and the letter informing them that the team was dissolved, those are all true.  
> \- Is it really a Carraville fic without hints of Beville? No, of course not. Basically, Becks and Gaz are actually kind of close while he plays in United, and he becomes this great supporter of women's football and he's the reason that Real Madrid actually make a women's team while he's there (they don't really have a professional women's team, but they have an amateur women's team since last year I believe)  
> \- find me on [tumblr](https://neyvenger.tumblr.com/)


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